Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Many wives are so angry about their husband’s infidelity, that they can’t stand the sight of him or the thought of him living under the same roof. So, they kick him out of the house. But, with that accomplished, many wonder what should happen afterward. They aren’t sure if they should continue to limit their access and communication with their spouse or if they should respond to his attempts at communication.

I heard from a wife who said: “as soon as I found out my husband cheated on me with a woman who he knows that I despise, I immediately kicked him out of the house. Since that time, he has called me constantly. Last night, he came by and knocked on the door. All of his messages are various attempts at an apology. I really don’t have much of a desire to talk to him right now. But my friend says she thinks that it might be a mistake to continue to completely ignore him indefinitely. I am not sure what to do. I feel like if I make it too easy for him to talk to me, then he won’t be as remorseful as he should be. I want to scare him and make him think that he might lose me. Should I ignore him right now?”

This is a difficult question to answer. I understand that you don’t want to make this easy on him. I also understand that you likely don’t want to hear his voice right now. But, to the extent that you can, you need to at least somewhat determine what you might want to happen in the future. Because how you act right now might have some influence on it. Below, I will discuss some things that you might want to consider.

Know That Ignoring Him For Too Long Could Run Counter To What You Truly Want:

Further exchanges with this wife indicated that somewhere down the road, she might like to save her marriage. But only if her husband was truly remorseful and was willing to do what was necessary to restore the trust and to make this right again.

So while not allowing her husband unlimited access to her was probably a decent idea (because it would encourage that remorse she wanted,) completely ignoring him indefinitely probably wasn’t. Think about it this way. If you ignore him for a time period that seems to be an eternity to him, he may eventually lose hope and give up. And when he gives up, what is to keep him from going back to the other woman because she is the only option available to him?

I am not saying this to you to scare you or to insinuate that you need to open the lines of communication before you are ready to do so, but I am trying to make you aware that there is some risk involved if you want to eventually save your marriage and you play this game for too long.

An Alternative To Ignoring Him That May Work A Bit Better:

As I said before, the wife’s strategy to inspire some remorse seemed logical to me. I felt this same way after my own husband’s infidelity. But don’t go too far with this or you will discourage what you are really hoping to accomplish.

A better alternative might be to delay him but to also offer some hope that you will be in touch when you are ready to speak with him. So my suggestion would be that the next time he calls or comes by, stop for a minute and address him. You might consider saying something like: “I appreciate your calling and reaching out to me, but right now, I am just not ready to talk about this. Things are still so fresh and I need some time to process this and to evaluate how I want to proceed. I am sure that I am going to have a lot of questions for you in the future, but right now, I am just not ready to have that conversation. I am still incredibly angry and shocked, so any conversation that we have is probably not going to be productive anyway. Give me a little time and I will contact you when I am ready to talk about it.”

Then pause and listen. Your husband might just start arguing his case because he finally has your attention. Whether you want to listen is up to you. You might say “I hear what you are saying and we can talk about this more in the future. But right now, I am just not ready to talk about it. I will contact you when I am.”

This conversation will do a couple of things for you. Now he knows that you are not going to ignore him forever so there is no reason for him to give up hope. But he also knows that him coming home or that any reconciliation is going to happen on your timeline so that you are still encouraging his remorse.

To me, this seems like a better solution than ignoring him altogether when sometime in the future, you may choose to save your marriage. Of course, no one can predict the future but it is nice to have options that are still open once you come to a decision.

My husband and I briefly lived apart after his affair because I needed some time to myself.  However, I was careful to keep in touch with my husband occasionally as I didn’t want to take things too far.  In the end, I decided that I would always regret it if I didn’t at least try to reconcile with him.  It wasn’t an easy process but it was worth it in the end.  You can read the whole story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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